Chapter 1: Instructional Capacity and Student Achievement: A Look Inside an Urban District

Knowledge about capacity building as a school improvement mechanism has primarily accumulated from descriptive accounts of high performing schools and districts. This study was different; it specified instructional capacity as a dynamic process of information sharing, knowledge creation, and adaptive practice, and used collective trust among school professionals as a social indicator of instructional systems functioning at high capacity. Multilevel modeling was used to test the relationship between instructional capacity observable in collective trust and student achievement, and the mediating effect of student trust. Data came from a sample 1,473 students in 80 schools from the same urban district. Results confirm the performance benefits of social conditions that facilitate knowledge creation and adaptive practice among school professionals. Additionally, collective student trust in teachers mediated the instructional capacity-achievement relationship.